Digital Scrapbook Designer Professionals

Should You Have a Theme for Your Website?

PChip — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 10:39:49 +0000

I’m not going to answer that question with a definitive yes or a no. I think the choice is totally up to the individual. However what I will tell you is that people love themes - especially when it comes to scrapbooking. If you decide to go with a theme - market the heck out of it! You can find digital scrapbooking websites of every flavor out there. Some based on scrapbooking themes such as family heritage or holiday scrapping. Some based on artists styles such as shabby chic or clean lines. Others are based on specific elements or tools such as templates or digital ’stamps’. One thing I know for sure is that you’re only limited by your imagination when it comes to scrappy business themes.

Get Crazy and Have Some Fun!

I’ve seen entire businesses launched based on themes that have nothing at all to do with scrapping. For example the cow, a common farm animal, has nothing at all to do with scrapbooking, and yet multiple websites and entire scrapbooking businesses are built around… you guessed it - a Cow of all things! Just take a look at: Moo Two Designs, The Scrappy Cow, Creative Cow Scrapbooking, Purple Cows, Lazy Cow Designs, or Arts Cow. All these sites have a mixed theme of cows and scrapbooking. Which at first glance makes no good business sense at all. However each of these site owners have found a way to weave into their scrapbooking business their love of cows.

Strange, I know and certainly not the direction I would go in personally, but I can’t deny the fact that these folks have done a terrific job of marketing their websites to the point where they have a degree of success. If someone can be successful in a scrapbooking website that has a cow as their mascot - it seems just about anything goes! So if your theme seems not-so-scrappy at first glance and you’re wondering how to market your digital scrapbooking business successfully in spite of that…. study other ‘non-traditional’ themed websites to see how they’ve gone about it and learn from them.

Go with What’s Popular

Choosing your business angle can sometimes be a chore, while other times it just comes naturally. Recently I wrote a post about the new digi-scrap website, SaveTheGreen.Net and if you stopped in to visit their website you may have found the same thing that I did… For the gals over at Save the Green, I think the theme may have grown naturally out of their personal interests in being earth friendly and the fact that digital scrapping is more ‘green’ than paper scrapping. Combine that with the current buzz to be kinder to our earth, conserve resources, and be better stewards of our environment - and you’ve got a terrific business angle.

Going with something popular such as this also opens up additional marketing avenues. Not only can they market their website and business from inside the scrapbooking niche, they can also pull in business from the earth-preservation niche. Another popular theme I’ve seen tapped into is the digital photography niche.

Going with what’s popular will only work for you if it’s something that will withstand time. So make sure when you go with whatever our world is buzzing about, you can keep it buzzing for a long time!

Did You Theme Your Scrappy Site?

So let us know what theme you’ve chosen for your business if you did indeed choose one. Tell us your reasoning behind your theme and how it’s worked for you thus far. How has your theme made life easier for you or created a challenge for ya? Leave a message in the comment box and feel free to link to your scrappy site too!

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Blog Hopping for Profit and Fun

PChip — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 10:28:07 +0000

There are many different ways to market your Digi-Scrap businesses. Some are going to cost you a money investment while others may cost you nothing but time. A “Blog Hop” is a free option that you can use to announce your products and services and it just takes a little bit of your time to reach out to a group of fellow bloggers in the industry. Besides the extra cash it can put into your pocket a blog hop also boosts your SEO at the same time. It’s a terrific choice for a digital scrapbook professional like yourself.

A blog hop works very much like a blog carnival or blog train. It’s a planned event that participants use to post about a particular subject on a single day. All participants hop from blog to blog making sure they hit each blog for every participant in the group. Participants leave a comment on each of these blog postings. In the case of a digital scrapbook blog hop - you can pick up some terrific information as well and some great gifts if the hop includes free items too.

To get an idea of how such an event runs and can benefit you as a digital scrapbook entrepreneur, jump through this blog hop we are participating in today in celebration of Earth Day. Then be sure to come back here this weekend for more information about the business benefits of blog hopping and other free marketing opportunities for your digi-scrap business.

Earth Day Blog Hop

This event is hosted by SaveTheGreen.Net and our theme is of course Taking Care of Mother Earth. We were given a palette of colors to work with and asked to create a digi-scrap product to share with the blog hoppers. So if you follow the hop along the way - you can pick up some fun products to use in your projects, meet designers at their blogs along the way, and consider ways to use events such as blog hops in your product marketing.

Our Pieces in the Digital Scrappers Kit

Our digital share products are a mini-set of papers and a mini-set of frames/journal blocks. To download these goodies, simply click on the photos below. Be sure to open your package today and check out the extra Quick Page bonus hidden inside too!

Remember there’s a Quick Page surprise inside!

So be sure to open up your package today and grab the extra freebies right away! They are tucked inside your zip file and not shown in this picture.

More Blogs - More Fun

Below I’ve listed all the participants in the hop. Be sure to visit their blogs and leave a message along the way! Have fun. Be extra good to the Earth we Live on today!

Here is the list of blogs to visit to meet each of the talented digi-scrap artists:
http://rubylanedigifancies.blogspot.com

http://www.piggyscraps.blogspot.com/

http://kimberkattscraps.wordpress.com/

http://mitsybelle.com/blog

DSD-Pro << You are Here!

http://www.mahdigitaldesigns.blogspot.com/

http://nathandesign.blogspot.com/

http://scrappycocoa.blogspot.com

http://www.doitdigi.com/blog

http://dddesigns-diosa.blogspot.com/

http://digidesdesigns.blogspot.com/

http://www.nibblesskribbles.com

http://mommymetimescrapper.blogspot.com

http://skrapperdigitals.blogspot.com

http://creationcassel.com/blog

http://sassydesignz.blogspot.com/

http://shellymariescraps.blogspot.com

http://totallyrawkindesigns.blogspot.com

http://SavetheGreen.net (download links here and here)

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Advertising With Earth Day in Mind

PChip — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 09:41:35 +0000

Recently I stumbled upon an Earth-Friendly website that’s focused on “going green” while teaching new digi-scrappers how to preserve their memories without damaging our forests.

Save the Green was started when three digital scrapbookers (two of whom are digital scrapbook kit designers), decided they wanted to expand on the idea of showing non digiscrappers the fun and cost savings of scrapbooking digitally. STG gives “green” a dual connotation. The site emphasizes both the money saving aspects of digi-scrapping and preservation of our environment. They support green methods of printing and their site hosting uses wind energy credits to power their servers. The business angle here is that it’s as much about saving the environment as it is about having fun preserving memories by scrapping on our computers.

The site owners use the free program GIMP to teach digital scrapbooking. There are a few sites on the internet that address using this program for digital scrapbooking, and this one has more tutorials on the subject than most. They only ask for a simple registration in the forum in order to view their GIMP video tutorials and they supply a free digital starter kit that their new members can use to follow along exactly with the tuts.

Digi-Scrap Pro’s Can Jump On Board Too!

Save the Green offers advertising to digital scrap kit designers and store owners too. If you’re looking to capture the interest of new digital scrapbookers, you can use this site to put your designs in front of those folks. Their target market are those that have never digiscrapped, those who are earth-sensitive, and folks using TheGimp. They bost having tear-off flyers and personalized business card templates included with every purchase of advertising - helping you take your business to another level.

Because they are a new site, their advertising rates are at the lowest they will ever be. They have some terrific introductory offers and their advertising can be purchased in packages at a variety of prices and sizes. The ad placements include a 150×150 spot in the marketplace, a 468×60 banner rotation on the top right of every page of the forum, 230×350 size sponsor ads run along the left side of the marketplace and other places on their site. You can get more info about their advertising packages at The Green Stand, including how to get a certificate from the Arbor Day Foundation and a tree planted in your name.

They are sponsoring an Earth Day blog hop event on the 22nd of April. A great way to get your newest kit in front of fresh green digi-scrappers!

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Need More Proof of Social Media Importance?

PChip — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:58:57 +0000

Here’s a great video that proves just how important social media is to any online business today!

..So now my next question to you is this…Are you using Social Media in your Digital Scrapbooking business? Yes or no? How? With what results?I’d love to know what you have to share on this subject. So please go ahead and leave a message here, telling us your thoughts on it!

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100+ New Digi-Scrap Resources for Professionals

PChip — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 04:26:01 +0000

I thought it was high time I added some new resources for our Business Associates. So I ran searches and collected resources for Digi-Scrap designers, bloggers, and freelance scrapbook artists too.

Then I went to work copy and pasting new resources into our forums until my fingers were tired to the bone. In the end I wound up with over 100+ resources to share. Most of them are for digi-art designers, however there’s plenty for other professionals working in our industry too! And if the truth be known, I really only scratched the surface on what’s out there on the web to assist scrapbooking professionals.

Sneak Peak into the Resources List

The resources include: torn, folded, distressed, and colorful paper how-to’s; making glass beads; transparent 3-D objects; a bazillion different affects for making alpha sets; tips for packaging your products; printing photo albums, and much, much more. Far too many to name here!

Visit our Forums Today!

So if you want to grab some freebies with commercial TOU’s or revive your muse with some really awesome tutorials to get you back into designing fresh and new products - then jump over to our forums today and see what I added.

If you aren’t registered yet, simply log into your business associates benefits area. Right there on the front page in the “Getting Started” chart you’ll find instructions for registration in step three.

Don’t Be Shy About Sharing Your Knowledge

While you are in the forums, please add your favorite links to resources that you use too. I’m sure our entire membership will appreciate you sharing.

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Using Twitter & Other Social Media to Boost Your Digi-Scrap Business?

PChip — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 02:59:41 +0000

Social Media is still a fairly new way to market your products and build business recognition. I’ve seen many, many digi-scrap professionals using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to announce sales, “talk up” the activity on their sites, and highlight their members, etc. Most folks are telling me they are indeed seeing traffic back to their websites as a result of it. For our industry I’m thinking it might be a good way to market your business - especially because our businesses are web-based.

Maybe social media isn’t for everyone.

According to eMarketer (piggybacking on some data from LinkedIn and Harris Interactive), it seems that only 8 percent of advertisers actually think of Twitter as a “very effective” promotional tool. And the numbers aren’t much different for consumers. Just 8 percent of consumers think the same thing. So my question to use is this - Are you using Social Media to boost your digi-scrap sales? If so, how are you using it? Barb Dybwad wrote an article over at Mashable-The Social Media Guide blog that claims one in five tweets are free brand advertising. She goes on to say,

“Those tweets contains a mix of requests for information about specific products as well as responses to those queries from people’s networks, giving companies an unprecedented window into the concerns and questions customers and potential customers have about their products.”

I think it’s that comment alone that prompted so many responses to your article that specifically addresses the fact that while businesses are using it for marketing and strengthening their brand, there’s still a ton of data that isn’t collected and shared with business owners - so too much is still unknown about it’s worth. As more information is gathered and shared with Twitter members the true power of Twitter as a business tool will quickly be realized.

Now is the Time to Dig Deep into Twitter

Research it’s business uses. Experiment with the service and start learning about the many ways Twitter can be used to help you boost your digi-scrap sales. The same goes for Facebook. Be careful as you do too, because Social Media can be as much of a distraction as it can be a tool. If you find yourself spending too much time “playing” on Social Media sites, step back for a minute and double check what you’ve got going on. Remember to periodically track how much time you may be wasting on Social Media sites. Do games and idle chattering keep you from doing more important business activities? Social sites of all types whether they be micro-blogs like Twitter or community forums, can be like a double edge sword. Great for marketing and great for wasting time too. It’s one area I have to watch all the time! It’s just too easy to get side-tracked. Now don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with chilling out with friends on social sites. A digi-scrapper who’s all work and no play is going to get burn out really fast. So play and have fun with folks hanging out at Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and in your favorite community forums. Just be sure to keep a healthy balance in your activities.

DSD-Pro is on Twitter and on Facebook Soon Too

I’ve started playing and working in the Social Media sites to see what I can learn for business purposes and I’m having fun meeting new friends, and reconnecting with old friends along the way. Check us out @DSD_Pro on Twitter and look for our Facebook Fan Page as well. We’re just getting started so there isn’t much to see yet, but soon we’ll have some good digi-scrap business info for you to get your hands on and move your business forward!

Now besides experiencing this media first hand I’m also reading about Marking through Social Media sites. The amount of research available about the marketing potential is massive. Enough to give a person information overload. So I’m taking it a bite size chunk at a time. I’ll pass along to you tips and tricks as I discover them. Please share in the comments section your experience as well. Take a minute and talk to us will ya?

Click here to view more details

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The Big Giveaway Starts Today!

PChip — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 13:14:59 +0000

Good Day to you Fellow Digi-Scrap Entrepreneur!

Remember I told you about that giant Twitter Giveaway event a few days ago? The one that could help you grow your prospect list?

Well we had a ton of business owners jump on board and they are now ready to give you lots of free products and offer you some totally outstanding deals on top of that too. It all starts today!

Because of the shear number of participants and the number of items being offered, I opted to include only one of my original free items at the giveaway. A four-piece twitter background package - because I think it’s more relevant to the event and offers my digi-scrapper store owner friends something else they can sell in their stores.

The PLR products I was originally planning to offer, I’ve decided to offer only to folks who take advantage of the designer Twitter backgrounds I mentioned. So if you register your free gift from me, you’ll get that as a bonus in the next day or two as well.

Giveaway Link: http://twittermarketinggiveaway.com/go/80

There are so many tips and tricks to using Twitter that you’d probably waste countless hours and dollars looking for the RIGHT
product that tells you how to get ahead with Twitter and/or to simply make money with social networking.

STOP! Don’t waste your time and money on every Twitter product that comes your way, when all you need to know is right here, at this giveaway event:

http://twittermarketinggiveaway.com/go/80

You see, over 400 contributors have donated hundreds and hundreds of products, most of which are dedicated to Twitter and/or Social Networking! Some of which can be helpful to you in your digi-scrap business too. Whether it is how to build your follower-base, or how to use the various 3rd-party tools to make Twitter work right, you can get that information here!

To grab your free background files from me (which you can then turn around and sell straight from your store and keep 100% of the profits) - just register at the giveaway sight, and wander through the downloads to pick out the offers you think could help you in your digi-scrap business.

I think you’re going to be shocked at what you’ll find!

Here’s a picture of the Twitter package that I’m offering so you’ll know what you’re looking for in the
giveaway if you are interested in picking it up.

Here’s the signup link again:
http://twittermarketinggiveaway.com/go/80

I hope your business does well for you today and have a blast at the giveaway!

PaintChip

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Free GiveAway Event for Twitter Fans

PChip — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:28:45 +0000

Check this out..I was invited to be part of this great JV with a TON of ebooks and software.

It is expected to get me about 5000 members on my prospect list. Who knows, maybe up to 10,000 new members. And I’m stoked about it! The promotion will have over 200,000 visitors in just a few days. So the exposure will be great.

The promoter, Bob Tompkins & Reed Floren has asked me if I knew anyone that would want to participate in this venture…

Since I know most of our blog readers are just like you and have a digi-scrap site that might work with this. This giveaway event will have some really awesome stuff for any online entrepreneur, blogger, or tweeter. I’m thinking your audience would fall into those categories.

I’m guessing you might be looking to increase your prospect list too. I think that some of you will really like what they are doing here and I know you will jump on board like I did ASAP.

To get the “by Invite Only” private JV details, just jump on over to the JV sign up page to get the details, sign up (it’s free) and then get a gift ready to pass along to other and watch your list start to grow right away!

There is only a few days to get involved. So don’t delay if you want to get on board with the list building activities! They made it so easy. It’s all dynamic. You set the text and logo’s yourself then it is automatically and instantly added to the sales pages and members area.

I’m getting my special gift ready to go now and will load it up tomorrow morning. So as soon as the actual event launches and people start coming on over to pick up their freebies, they can pick up mine too… and join my mailing list at the same time!

If you’ve never participated in a giveaway project before as a joint venture partner, this might be the perfect one for you to get your feet wet with. The guys are not limiting the JV list to only folks with big lists. So even a newbie can jump on board this one!

Now if you need more information about how to go about joint venturing in a giveaway event, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’ll be happy to fill you in on what it’s like and what steps you’ll need to do to get the most out of the giveaway. You know - so you can really get a bunch of new subscribers to your list!

Okay - enough talk. I’ve got to break away from the blog and go finish up my free gift for the giveaway event. Hope you’ll join me!

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Product Safety Laws Affect Digi-Scrap Entrepreneurs?

PChip — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:11:32 +0000

There are so many laws and regulations that differ from country to country that it’s hard to keep up with them all. It can also be a challenge to determine which ones affect you and your business. Some are obvious, like many of the small business tax laws or the basic copyright laws. While others are confusing as all get out.

Take for example the product safety laws. At first glance you may be thinking that the various consumer product safety laws associated with child safety don’t really apply to digital scrapbooking. Then again - maybe they do. If part of your business activities includes printing and binding your digi-scrap art products into books that are going to be used by children, do the laws apply to you? If you sell non-digital products in your online store along side your digi-art products (ringed books or photo albums and such) - are they likely to be purchased for projects made for younger audiences? Could they be used in school classrooms? Are you selling your digital products in a physical medium like CD’s of artwork that could potentially end up in the hands of a 12 year old sitting in front of the computer using your products?

The choices for how your products are marketed can even make a difference. For example, if you show a picture of a family looking at pictures in a scrapbook and a child is included in this family - does it imply that your finished scrapbooks could be considered to be made for adults AND children alike? It may sound totally ridiculous to you that your digital scrapbooking business could be affected by laws and regulations related to other businesses as far out in left field as the toy business. However, the fact is that in this day and age we often see outragous lawsuits or something like seemingly silly claims, being seen by millions on YouTube and other internet avenues - completely wiping out small businesses.

There could also be real concerns about the types of materials used in the products you deliver to your customers and how those materials could be unsafe to children!

So what do you do about it? I mean how do you run your business without being paranoid of breaking laws or getting sued, or deciding to walk away because it’s all so very overwhelming? There are several things you can do as an entrepreneur to feel more comfortable. Be prepared for bad things to come about - even if you think it won’t happen to you. Consider things you can do to protect your business and your family from false claims, from disasters, or from breaking laws that you didn’t even think would affect you. Put things in place now so you can sleep better at night, knowing your business is on the right track.

Research the Obvious

Check out the local laws and regulations associated with running a small business in your home. These laws will vary based on the country where you live, as well as the smaller townships such as providence, cities, counties, etc.
Look into the tax laws for your areas also. Research this info both online and offline. Not only do the various tax associations have local offices where you can talk with trained personnel and get answers to your questions, but they have a wealth of information and additional resources via websites too.
What form of business have you chosen and how does that affect your personal or business assets should a loss occur? It can be drastically different depending on if you’ve chosen to conduct your business as a Sole Proprietor, a Limited Liability Company, an S-Corporation, or one of the other business types that are available to you. So visit the government offices that apply to your location and business needs.

You may find there are license requirements for you to conduct a digital scrapbooking business in your home. Then again, maybe there aren’t, but how will you know unless you thoroughly research it?

Get Straight Talk from the Right Professionals

Consulting with a professional before getting started, or when you question how to do something the legal way may be all that’s needed. Then again you may feel it would be better for you to hire or keep on retainer certain professionals for their ongoing services.

An accountant or other financial adviser is almost a must in any business endeavor.
You may want to look at getting business advice from an attorney that is well versed in consumer safety practices if you distribute consumer goods that are delivered offline (scrapbooks, CD’s, crafting products, or finished art products of other types, etc).
Keep in mind your local insurance agent who can give you council on whether or not you need coverage for loss or damaged equipment or even digital files that make up your digi-art inventory. Do you have customers come to your home for consultations? Do you have products your display in homes or use your car for business purposes? Are there additional insurance needs associated with your business activities that you haven’t thought of?

Just as I encourage you to research in multiple places, I also encourage you to ’shop’ around for your professionals too. Like coordinating efforts with the right doctor, dentist, vet, or car mechanic - you need to feel comfortable with the business professionals you work with too. So don’t be shy about choosing the ones that fit well for you and your business!

Digi-Scrapping and Toys

So back to the question I asked in the title of this post - how (if at all) do the product safety laws currently under question in the USA, affect your digi-scrapping business? Since your business is going to be different from mine, I can’t really answer that question for you. Surprisingly enough, for me and my business there may actually be a connection. But I’m not sure. So I’m off to do additional research and get some advice from my professional team. If this is one of those questionable concerns you’d like to do more research on yourself, here’s a few links to help get you started:

Curious about what got me looking into this toy thing a little further? A conversation prompt at one of the many S4O scrapbooking Yahoo Groups. While some of these groups are specifically for paper scrappers, I still find them of interest to the digital scrapbooking side of the house too sometimes.

Do you have an opinion about this? I’d like to hear it. Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment!

~ Cindy (aka PaintChip)

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Digi-Scrap Webmaster Goodies

PChip — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 11:53:18 +0000

When it comes to running your small business, do you find that sometimes you wind up being a “Jack of all Trades?” I know there are a lot of digi-scrap professionals that end up creating their own website design. It can be a big challenge for someone who’s never done it before! This is one of those things that is sometimes better handled by outsourcing too. Whether you choose to accomplish your website design as a DIY project or hire someone else to do the work, you still need to know some basic info about what works and what doesn’t work so well.

Today I thought I’d share with you some websites that offer you guidance and tutorials for dealing with the website design hurdles you may be jumping through for your Digi-Scrap business website.

While making several of my regular stops along the web this morning I came across a link shared over at DigiD4O. Freelance.com shares 25 tutorials for advance designers. I found the design tutorial about hand drawn sites rather interesting.

Continuing on my web hopping trip I found that eskimo.com offers several good points about common flaws in website design. These are the types of things you want to avoid!

If you are looking for browser-safe color combinations for your website, a quick search any search engine site will provide you with a list of places on line that offer color picking tools. Many of them offer pre-designed color sets to make the job even easier. Here’s a list of color-helping tools I found with a simple Yahoo search.

Now if you are just getting start designing, you may be looking for basic guidance about HTML coding and such. W3schools.com offers super easy tutorials to learn from.

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